Part 1 Book 2 Chapter 4 Details concerning the Cheese-Dairies of Pontarlier
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双语小说 【分类】世界名著 -[作者: 维克多-雨果] 阅读:[104417]
Part 1 Book 2 Chapter 4 Details concerning the Cheese-Dairies of Pontarlier 19世纪30年代的法国。富人乘坐马车,用金餐具吃喝。穷人没有工作,没有食物,没有希望——他们是穷苦人,起义一触即发。法国人民还记得1789年的法国大革命。当时,民众在巴黎街头筑起街垒,死去的人数以千计。这样的时刻又要到来了吗? 这是冉阿让的故事。他坐了19年的牢,终于恢复了自由身。可是,他怎么生活,到哪里去找工作呢?像他这样一个人,还有什么希望呢?这也是沙威的故事,他是一个督察,一个残忍的人,一个冷酷的人。他的人生只有一个目标——把冉阿让再次送进大牢。这还是芳汀的故事,芳汀和她的女儿珂赛特。她们的故事是怎样改变了冉阿让的一生?这也是马吕斯的故事。他是巴黎的一名学生,做好了为起义而牺牲的准备——或是为爱情而死。最后,还有伽弗洛什——一个在巴黎街头流浪的孩子,他没有家,没有亲人,没有鞋穿……可他的脸上总是挂着笑容,心中总是有歌儿在欢唱。 不过,我们要先从冉阿让讲起…… France in the 1830s. The rich ride in carriages, and eat from gold plates. The poor have no work, no food, no hope – they are Les Misérables, and rebellion is in the air. France remembers the French Revolution in 1789, when the people built barricades in the streets of Paris, and the dead were counted in thousands. Is that time coming again? This is the story of Jean Valjean. A prisoner for nineteen years, now at last he is a free man. But how can he live, where can he find work? What hope is there for a man like him? It is also the story of Javert, a police inspector, a cruel man, a hard man. He wants one thing in life – to send Valjean back to prison. And it is Fantine’s story too, Fantine and her daughter Cosette. How does their story change Valjean’s life? And it is also Marius’s story. He is a student in Paris, ready to die for the rebellion – or for love. And last, there is Gavroche – a boy of the Paris streets, with no home, no family, no shoes... But a boy with a smile on his face and a song in his heart. But we begin with Jean Valjean...
Now, in order to convey an idea of what passed at that table, we cannot do better than to transcribe here a passage from one of Mademoiselle Baptistine’s letters to Madame Boischevron, wherein the conversation between the convict and the Bishop is described with ingeniousminuteness.
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“……那人对谁也不注意。他饿鬼似的贪婪地吃着。吃完汤以后,他说:
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". . . This man paid no attention to any one. He ate with the voracity of a starving man. However, after supper he said:
"`Monsieur le Cure of the good God, all this is far too good for me; but I must say that the carters who would not allow me to eat with them keep a better table than you do.’
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“说句私话,我觉得这种观察有些刺耳。我哥答道:
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"Between ourselves, the remark rather shocked me. My brother replied:-
"`No,’ returned the man, `they have more money. You are poor; I see that plainly. You cannot be even a curate. Are you really a cure? Ah, if the good God were but just, you certainly ought to be a cure!’
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“‘公平两字远远不能全部表达慈悲上帝的好处。’我哥说。
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"`The good God is more than just,’ said my brother.
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“过了一会,他又说:
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"A moment later he added:--
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“‘冉阿让先生,您是要到蓬塔利埃去吗?’
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"`Monsieur Jean Valjean, is it to Pontarlier that you are going?’
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“‘那是指定的路程。’
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"`With my road marked out for me.’
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“我想他一定是那样说的。随后他接着说:
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"I think that is what the man said. Then he went on:--
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“‘明天一早我就得动身。这段路是很难走的。晚上冷,白天却很热。’
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"`I must be on my way by daybreak to-morrow. Travelling is hard. If the nights are cold, the days are hot.’
"`You are going to a good country,’ said my brother. `During the Revolution my family was ruined. I took refuge in Franche-Comte at first, and there I lived for some time by the toil of my hands. My will was good. I found plenty to occupy me. One has only to choose. There are paper mills, tanneries, distilleries, oil factories, watch factories on a large scale, steel mills, copper works, twenty iron foundries at least, four of which, situated at Lods, at Chatillon, at Audincourt, and at Beure, are tolerably large.’
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“我想我没有搞错吧,我哥说的几个名字一定就是那几个了,随后他自己又把话打断,对我说:
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"I think I am not mistaken in saying that those are the names which my brother mentioned. Then he interrupted himself and addressed me:--
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“‘亲爱的妹子,我们有些亲戚住在那里吗?’
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"`Have we not some relatives in those parts, my dear sister?’
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“我回答说:
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"I replied,--
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“‘我们从前有过的,在那些亲戚里有德·吕司内先生,革命以前,他是蓬塔利埃的卫戍司令。’
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"`We did have some; among others, M. de Lucenet, who was captain of the gates at Pontarlier under the old regime.’
"`Yes,’ resumed my brother; `but in ’93, one had no longer any relatives, one had only one’s arms. I worked. They have, in the country of Pontarlier, whither you are going, Monsieur Valjean, a truly patriarchal and truly charming industry, my sister. It is their cheese-dairies, which they call fruitieres.’
"Then my brother, while urging the man to eat, explained to him, with great minuteness, what these fruitieres of Pontarlier were; that they were divided into two classes: the big barns which belong to the rich, and where there are forty or fifty cows which produce from seven to eight thousand cheeses each summer, and the associated fruitieres, which belong to the poor; these are the peasants of mid-mountain, who hold their cows in common, and share the proceeds. `They engage the services of a cheese-maker, whom they call the grurin; the grurin receives the milk of the associates three times a day, and marks the quantity on a double tally. It is towards the end of April that the work of the cheese-dairies begins; it is towards the middle of June that the cheese-makers drive their cows to the mountains.’
"The man recovered his animation as he ate. My brother made him drink that good Mauves wine, which he does not drink himself, because he says that wine is expensive. My brother imparted all these details with that easy gayety of his with which you are acquainted, interspersing his words with graceful attentions to me. He recurred frequently to that comfortable trade of grurin, as though he wished the man to understand, without advising him directly and harshly, that this would afford him a refuge. One thing struck me. This man was what I have told you. Well, neither during supper, nor during the entire evening, did my brother utter a single word, with the exception of a few words about Jesus when he entered, which could remind the man of what he was, nor of what my brother was. To all appearances, it was an occasion for preaching him a little sermon, and of impressing the Bishop on the convict, so that a mark of the passage might remain behind. This might have appeared to any one else who had this, unfortunate man in his hands to afford a chance to nourish his soul as well as his body, and to bestow upon him some reproach, seasoned with moralizing and advice, or a little commiseration, with an exhortation to conduct himself better in the future. My brother did not even ask him from what country he came, nor what was his history. For in his history there is a fault, and my brother seemed to avoid everything which could remind him of it. To such a point did he carry it, that at one time, when my brother was speaking of the mountaineers of Pontarlier, who exercise a gentle labor near heaven, and who, he added, are happy because they are innocent, he stopped short, fearing lest in this remark there might have escaped him something which might wound the man. By dint of reflection, I think I have comprehended what was passing in my brother’s heart. He was thinking, no doubt, that this man, whose name is Jean Valjean, had his misfortune only too vividly present in his mind; that the best thing was to divert him from it, and to make him believe, if only momentarily, that he was a person like any other, by treating him just in his ordinary way. Is not this indeed, to understand charity well? Is there not, dear Madame, something truly evangelical in this delicacy which abstains from sermon, from moralizing, from allusions? and is not the truest pity, when a man has a sore point, not to touch it at all? It has seemed to me that this might have been my brother’s private thought. In any case, what I can say is that, if he entertained all these ideas, he gave no sign of them; from beginning to end, even to me he was the same as he is every evening, and he supped with this Jean Valjean with the same air and in the same manner in which he would have supped with M. Gedeon le Provost, or with the curate of the parish.
"Towards the end, when he had reached the figs, there came a knock at the door. It was Mother Gerbaud, with her little one in her arms. My brother kissed the child on the brow, and borrowed fifteen sous which I had about me to give to Mother Gerbaud. The man was not paying much heed to anything then. He was no longer talking, and he seemed very much fatigued. After poor old Gerbaud had taken her departure, my brother said grace; then he turned to the man and said to him, `You must be in great need of your bed.’ Madame Magloire cleared the table very promptly. I understood that we must retire, in order to allow this traveller to go to sleep, and we both went up stairs. Nevertheless, I sent Madame Magloire down a moment later, to carry to the man’s bed a goat skin from the Black Forest, which was in my room. The nights are frigid, and that keeps one warm. It is a pity that this skin is old; all the hair is falling out. My brother bought it while he was in Germany, at Tottlingen, near the sources of the Danube, as well as the little ivory-handled knife which I use at table.
"Madame Magloire returned immediately. We said our prayers in the drawing-room, where we hang up the linen, and then we each retired to our own chambers, without saying a word to each other."